blonde poker forum

In before "loads of thin in title"

Ok this hand has been bugging me so would appreciate thoughts on all aspects of play through the hand including thought on Villains line except pre pls as yes it should be a fold pre but we didnt fly all the way to the caribbean to fold suited cards obv  ;)

3rd hand into day2 so no reads but tough table with JP, Wadey, Pete Haslam, Elwood to name a few

Blinds 250/500/50
Stacks  JP 40900
Us 55000

Action folds to us in the HJ and we open  5c Kc to 1050 with btn calling as does JP from the BB

Flop   4s 5d 5s  (3850)

JP checks, we bet 1800 and after the btn folds JP calls.

Turn  8c   (7450)

JP chks, we 3950    ok so far?

Meh

Im checking turn vs JP as I like my hand, some of his "got there" range got there. He isnt taking us for a 5, but can rep it, so I let him bluff river.

Vs very competant villains, I have no problem is losing some percieved value with a hand im not likely folding, and Im happy to call down every river in the deck

what? 100% bet the turn. We get value from pairs/draws/pair+SD's

pretty sure i gave my reasoning, you arent getting any value when he sticks it in your eye on the tricky river

Is clearly fine so far.  If we can't bet trips on the turn what are we betting

Agree with TL, don't think checking a an option.

Eh?

ffs he leads, we casnt check

can people quote my entire post please - id didnt give the explanation so you can mis-quote and question me

please feel free to tell me how happy people are barelling the river and calling off the crai

We are not playing a hand vs population tendancies (to coin the phrase being punting around) - we are playing vs an absolute sicko who is going to make us wish we were outside in the sun on a tricky river, Im happy playing a smaller pot and trading my image later

sure does

edfjinvgjfmd,px]


yes bet turn :)

We are playing against someone good. We have pretty close to the absolute top our range. We can have bluffs / semi bluffs that we would be betting so we should also be betting our good hands. This is as far as thinking needs to go on the turn.

oh thanks, thank you

wp on the red text too vs this very good player

fancy answering my question?

It depends on the river. On a blank river then bet/folding K5 seems stupidly exploitable so I would be bet/calling vs anyone good

U mad?

It's as simple as this. Vs someone good who I know little about I don't really see much option but to default to a GTO approach. That's all it is. I want to be bluffing / semibluffing sometimes so I have to be value betting to balance that. If I'm value betting and have no bluff range or bluffing and have no (or a too thin) value range then it makes it very easy for someone good to play against me so all I'm trying to do is make myself as tough to play against as possible.

Ye this.

Never checking in a million years. What value hands are we betting if we're checking 5x here? Just full houses? Gl getting those turn barrels through when we have draws next time.

Why do so many players want to take unorthodox (stupid) lines when they are up against a player who intimidates them?
No wonder "markups" are so high!

If you must avoid the river crai, then bet turn and check back the river.

You seem to be suggesting that all his air will bluff into you on the river (after you ch b the turn) and all his SD hands will ch/c the river versus your b/ch/b line. Really?

And even if there is something to this, you think it will make up for the times you miss out on three streets of value?

Ok consensus is all ok so far

Villain min+ check raises the turn to 8400

Wwyd now?

Concentrate on the bowl comp at Luton?

ITM ;)

13k

Bet turn. Checking is silly and completely FPS. If for some reason you do only want two streets of value then it is much better to bet flop, bet turn and check back river due to the texture of the board.

@ Guy... PaintingByNumbers was only quoting those two small parts of your post in order to highlight the logical inconsistency between them. i.e. If you believe that villain "isn't taking us for a 5" then it is illogical to check back the turn since you have a very clear value bet.

Call the turn check-raise now, planning to call on the vast majority of rivers (barring some spidey sense read/intuition that you may occasionally have in a moment of genius). 3betting the turn protects your hand vs his draws etc, but that is pretty much all it achieves (i.e. it does not really work for value). Villain should be extremely polarised when he check-raises the turn and so your hand is now sort of a top-of-the-range bluff catcher (it does beat most of his 5x hands of course though, but you'll still get value on the river from them because he will almost always bet).

If the river bricks and he checks it is actually going to be tough to get value since he is likely folding his entire range (because he was bluffing the turn and has given up). But I guess you can bet smallish to sometimes get a hero/curiosity call out of any of his bluffs that have random showdown value.

The issue I have with this hand is people are like "wiiiii trips, we are getting 3 streets "

JP  on the turn has just proved to us that we aren't.

JP is also sick enough to c/r river with his entire range  when we go for value, and pretty much can't call. But yet everyone seems to be happy to barrel  the lot off irrespective of river.

Mr badger, it's far from FPS, like I said in my op, I am sometimes happy to lose perceived value, vs the trade off of hating my life with a hand I know I can't fold. (This is also why it's very much a mis-quote to selectively pick things out when the reason for an apparent deviation from the "norm" is suggested)

Yeah guy you can't check. :)

Just need to get Aaron to come into the thread now and say he would check  ;ifm;

If you genuinely think that villain will c/r with his entire river range, then why on earth do you think this is a tough spot and that we "pretty much can't call"? We just call the river check-raise happily. If he really is doing this then, great... we have a nice strong hand with which to pick off his bluffs and we also beat many of his thin value check-raises.

In reality of course nobody is going to be 'sick' enough to check-raise their entire river range, and tbh this would not be 'sick' - it would just be bad play. Villain's river range is going to have a high percentage of mid-strength hands in it (i.e. bluff catchers) whereas hero's range for betting the river is strong and polarised. Why on earth would a good player choose to c/r the river with a mid-strength bluff-catcher type hand?

I've only played with JP a few times, but from what I understand he is a really good player. Really good players don't go around making spewy moves all the time just because they are 'sick'.

The problem you have is if you take a super passive line with a really good hand (one of the best hands you can have here ofc) against a player as observant as JP then you kinda hold a white flag up to him and say "I'm scared to play big pots against you" and he'll 100% use that to ramp the pressure on you later on. He's a superstar JP but at the end of the day he's OOP to you and he cant see your cards, he's not the type to randomly go berserk either so play strong, or at least don't play weak just cos it's him.

As for the actual hand obviously this is exploitable but I think in a vacuum folding the turn is a very real option, calling here and calling the river prolly isn't a good play here but obviously if we wanna get theoretical you should be making him show you his hand here the vast majority of the time.

Dave, you know JP's game well. So presumably this advice ^^ is based on the fact that you believe when JP takes this line he very very often has a fullhouse (44, 54s, 88 or 85s)? This would be the only reason to ever fold to the turn c/r. And it would be a super-exploitative play... basically 'outplaying' villain by taking advantage of his extremely narrow range on the turn by making a big fold.

Yh i'm posting with the benefit of knowing a lot about JP's game, it might be different if I was playing against him in this hand given that he knows the way I play a lot better than he know's Rich's but from a purely vacuum based observation in game I'd be asking myself what, if he is bluffing, is he trying to make me fold, 99? TT? AJs? I'm sure JP will be well aware WE COULD have a 5 here, after all we bet the flop multi-way and have bet the turn again 44, 56s, 53s, 57s, A5s, (prolly much less likely 88) all very possible for us. I just don't think JP would ever try make someone he knows nothing about to fold a 5 here. (or at the very least a strong range - and our range has to be pretty strong to bet twice here IMO) with the tiny re-raise as well.

I think you'll find you've prolly just run into it more often than not. Obviously folding the turn is an exploitative play and theoretically un-sound but I think that's fairly obvious that in theory our "turn defending range" should include K5.

@ Guy ... This is precisely the sort of problem with making huge adjustments based on a read or perception of an opponent. You're posting saying that JP is 'sick enough' to c/r the river with his whole range. But then Lil'Dave - who knows JP's game pretty well - suggests that he pretty much only has the effective nuts when he c/r the turn, let alone the river. So you'd be making a massive adjustment based on a 'read' that is completely wrong!

(I don't agree with the adjustment you suggested anyway... but that is a different issue and something I have already made clear in a previous post ITT)

@ Dave ... We both agree that folding on the turn here is hugely exploitative. You'd have to be supremely confident in your read about JP's range in order to make such a massive exploitative adjustment. Which is fine of course, if you really are that confident. I've never been so confident in my ability to completely outplay a very good player... and make no mistake about it, if you fold to the turn c/r (and are indeed correct about his range) then you have massively outplayed/exploited JP.

Obviously if Dave's read is correct, and JP really is so tight with his turn (or river) check-raises, then it makes the turn and river absolutely mandatory bets. They'd be bets anyway of course. But if villain is never going to put us in that horrible 'indifferent to calling or folding' spot by c/r the turn or river with a balanced polarised range, then it makes it even more comfortable for us to get three streets of value.

I'll post more later, I'm obv not suggesting he is stone cold bluffing all of the time, I anticipate it goes without saying there are going to be a tonne of hands in his range that beat us by the river (which include his semi bluffs now)

I'm not in the habit of getting to the point where I'm bluff catching with the top of my range.

We have gone from being in love with our hand to giving theoretical consideration to folding turn with the best possible hand we can have! Well surely we anticipate he can c/r turn, when we bet and have a plan already? Not reasses now?

There are huge advantages to be gained from being seen as passive if you arent!

Thx for all the feedback so far esp Stu,Guy,Dave I'm up in Edinburgh atm and posting on phone so wont get chance to fully reply till back but

I called the chk raise so we go to the river with K5cc and the board reading

4s 5d 5s  8c   

river   Th   (24250)
JP 29650
Hero 43750

JP bets 14300

We?

No-one is giving 'theoretical' consideration to folding. Theory says this is a call, pure and simple. Lil'Dave is considering folding as an exploitative adjustment; to crush JP through folding by exploiting the fact that he has a c/r range that only comprises nutted hands (I am not necessarily agreeing with this BTW... never been that confident in my ability to outplay great players).

As regards anticipating the c/r, two points. First, we would expect to get c/r on the turn or river here very infrequently. If JP is doing this with a really good range (i.e. a properly balanced nuts:air range) then we are indifferent to continuing in the hand and are indeed in a yukky spot. But just because he is able to occasionally put us in that spot, this does not mean that we should not bet for value. He might c/r occasionally, but far more often he will either call or fold.

Second, we ARE anticipating the c/r! Lil'Dave is anticipating it very occasionally but is 'happy' to see it because he is able to make a great fold to exploit JP's overly nutted range. Most other people (inc me) would be anticipating it happening sometimes but would be planning on calling down.

I think K5 is still high enough enough up in our range that we can call and not feel too bad about getting shown a better hand (without any reason to make an exploitative adjustment). It's also possible he can be value betting worse 5x

Call. Expect to lose more often than you win obviously, but do expect him to be bluffing some here. We are getting a price, and we even beat some of his value range (which means that this is not a true 'indifferent to calling' spot).

Obviously if you are Lil'Dave and have a great read that JP always has a FH here then you adjust by folding. Or maybe you have a sick in-game read on him that he is strong here, in which case you also adjust by folding. But this is an exploitative adjustment and no-one can know what reads your spidey-senses were giving you during the hand but you.

As I stated above, I have never been so confident in my own abilities that I believe I can massively outplay a great player by making some sort of hero fold here. But in-game even a mediocre player like myself can occasionally have a flash of genius and make a ninja-read... and if this happened to you during the hand and you were really, really sure that he has you beaten, then by all means fold. But remember that this is a pretty big adjustment to make, so you have to be very sure of your read to do it. Like I said, I am rarely so confident in my read vs a good player that I feel I can outplay them so extremely.

I'm not suggesting JP's turn c/r range is really really tight, nor that he would be, in general unbalanced or super polarised with his turn play - nor am I sure that he "always" has a FH when he c/r the turn - if it was me he was playing then everything would be totally different I'm basically saying, in a vacuum spot here, as Rich just folding NOW might be a better play than call/calling - it goes without saying at this point that from a theoretical angle K5 is way too good of a hand, and JP's likely to have the correct number of bluffs that folding is completely out of the question.

Thing is this is one hand, and there is no history, we're in a tournament and we're playing one of the better players in the tournament, our stack is good and the EV of a call/call won't ACTUALLY be that high (will certainly be +EV) I also think in this specific vacuum spot JP is likely to be for value way more than the theoretical mean. Given that Rich's percieved range is a lot stronger than it would be in theory (plenty of mid strength hands that SHOULD be bet OTT or OTF I imagine would have been checked in this specific instance)

I think you can make a really good case for folding based on those points alone, whilst ofc being fully aware that call/call is the totally stnd play.


If you play passively, you'll be seen as passive, therefore making you passive - passiveness isn't really something you can "put on" if you check the turn with K5 here and then find yourself with AJhh on 664hh9 and now you wanna bet you're (semi)bluffing nearly always

But we arent just seen as passive vs JP ldo

Honestly don't know why there is such a debate on this hand. Call river OP and hand is played perfectly imo, raising is too thin and folding is just out of the question.

Pretty interested to hear results tbh.

yh im not saying we should fold, I'm just saying you can defo make a vacuum case for it - I dont remember this hand from StK but my instincts if i was watching it and knew what Rich had would my instinct would be to try fold OTT, obviously though you have an easy "good" play in call/call.

This is all with the benefit of alot more info that Rich had at the time though so it's kinda irrelevant - I'm just saying folding the turn is better than call/fold and raising is way too thin so the next bext option behind call/call is to fold the turn so we should AT least consider it.  If JP's bluffing/vbetting frequencies are good then we're not actually making THAT much money on a call/call so I don't think it's even actually a hugely exploitative play in a vacuum. Preserving our stack and sacrificing some chips might be slighty more preferable in THIS tournament than playing thin guessing games.


Im not sure why we'd wanna be seen as passive, it's like the nut low way to play.

Because people play thinking you will fold  - obv!

Having people raise/give up on you OOP and not showing down and being assumed to "have it" can be a very easy way to pick up chips. Or people assuming you fold and get it in vs you terrible -

obvioulsy in the longer term it isnt going to last, but if people assume you are passive due to the above hand then you should obvioulsy adjust to that in game.

I think we're confusing TIGHT and PASSIVE here guy.

Chking back K5 on the turn would be passive imo, not tight.

Villains turn c/r begs the question "what is he putting us on"?

The answer is probably not a 5x hand. So therefore why would he c/r a boat when he would be so far ahead.

Shove now to fold out 67 which is all that is beating you.

The point being - I have been castigated for taking my passive line vs an aggro player,

We have a nutted yet susceptible hand (given action), but you have essentially suggested that JP isnt getting in a world of chips without having it (and admittedly some of his "it" we beat).

So why get to a positon where we hate our nutted hand vs a very good player, in a tournament where there are a tonne of better spots and we have lots of chips. We essentially in this hand end up bluff catching with the top of our range. You have by no means extracted max value from your hand and you are "hoping/guessing" by the river that you are right against a polarised range.

What do we do in this hand when the river flushes? We hate 20% of river cards, let alone the fact we might already be beat

There is nothing wrong with being passive in an isolated spot, providing that isnt your game and you recognise what view the table will take and adjusrt accordingly.

There is a lot of very good explanation in the thread already as to why we should bet the turn. 

We can all suspect this hand will end up badly or it likely wouldn't be here.  Just because the hand has turned nasty on us doesn't make betting the turn wrong.  Likewise we call the river knowing we are likely behind, but it can still be correct.  We just guesstimate we are going to be correct enough to justify taking the odds offered.

If we took the passive line here, we are likely to lose less chips.  But for each hand we lose less chips, there are several where we don't make as many.

I just don't see any long term gain through playing trips like you have nothing and then 5 betting 78 suited like a boss to take advantage of our theoretical passive/nitty table image.

In Deepstack tournament poker? Nothing wrong with small balling vs the best player on the table

Checking the turn here would be terrible imo. Literally couldn't care less who the villain is, there is no-one it could be whereby checking is a viable option. It's a perfect spot to bet and get a chunk of value from pair/pair+draw/big draws. Sure JP is a good player, but good players aren't going to be able to make our life tough in this spot ever. Sure sometimes he'll c/r the turn and bet the river... but even doing this (about as much pressure as he can exert), we are still pretty happy calling knowing it's +cEV. Much prefer betting turn and checking back some rivers, rather than going for semi-thin value on bad rivers.

Checking here could lead to us getting 1 street of value when we flop the abso top of our range. You just cant expect to pass up on these spots and expect to go deep in a decent comp... people will notice these weak/passive tendencies and just own you later on. Almost prefer 3-betting the turn to checking it. If you called river you played the hand perfectly imo. I know Dave has said you could fold turn, but with no history folding would be pretty absurd.

Just because someone is a sick player doesn't always mean they're always about to pull some move on you.

check turn then raise river, watch JP squirm in is seat

Yeh amir is right and this is a common misconception amongst the poker playing population. I used to find myself do it too, I'd be heads up in a pot vs Keith or someone I perceived to be miles better than me and start checking back Aces or flatting AK pre to their opens in obvious betting/3betting spots, and it's just a terrible way of adjusting to them.

It's this sort of thing that is one of the reasons hellmuth is so successful - people play terrible vs him.

I find it helps me a ton being a recognisable face in Dtd etc, that ppl expect me to always be pulling "sick" bluffs or moves vs them so people make terrible adjustments and do things like Guy says. It gets me loads of free showdowns (people checking back sets on the river because the flush got there etc) and gets my vbets and raises paid because people always expect me to be doing something crazy.

The reality is 99% of hands are played completely "standardly" and getting out of line vs unknowns in live tournaments almost never happens.

No but there arent many better flops than paired and flushing if he is going to!

Ok lets role reverse now so all stacks and pos are the same except I'm actually the BB and JP is the OR due to the fact I'm a rec and JP is a legit sicko does everyone still play the hand exactly the same to the river?

JP does know me btw as we started playing live at Luton at a similar time yrs ago obv he operates on a different level and probs would perceive me on the tighter side and will know this is a big tournament for me.

How do you play the streets as JP in pos with all the same action?

thats a bit of a tricky question as its such an easily dominated hand I can't see you seeing a flop with it? 

Or is K5 ok nowadays to call raises oop?

Sorry Gouty u misunderstood me  Im BB and u dont know my hand but you know JP's who is in the H/J and opened K5cc.
All actions and chips are as op it jus me n JP swapped seats.

Got me?

Are you trying to derail your own thread, or has he always had K5?

I assume JP has K5 now and play is still as you suggested.  The play should still be the same, as further up we are asuming we are fairly readless.  I assume he views you as fairly competant, but maybe if he has read recent threads here, he puts you on a few more bluffs?  ;)

Knew this thread would be a "my line was so strong and he doesn't know me, how can he call there?" thread :D

No not trying to derail was trying to see view on action as played and it seemed better with me in the hj.

Yes its a switcheroo so JP opens K5cc in hj  btn calls I peel from BB with xx

flop  I ck  JP Cb's  btn folds   I call

turn  I ck raise and JP peels the raise

river I lead 1/2 pot and JP folds face up

I work hard on concealing tells and try to reverse some obv ones and mix it up so dont think he gets a read that way and wanted to see how many people advocate a call otr where he folded and if now we have switched as its me oop does my actual line look stronger than if it was JP?

He folds the 5c face up to my bet otr :(

Yeh I'd still just play it the same either way. Calling vs randoms cos can still have worse 5x. Ppl peel all sorts of suited bullshit from the bb when "priced in" so expect to call and beat 56, 57, even like Q5s and 52s.

Yep.i got it now.

This hand is all to do the image he has of you. It feels like he is trying to rep the 5 with his turn c/r to me. I tend to make a point of never playing sickos oop early in tourneys so can't really help with the reverse question.

Can't wait for reveal tho. Nice thread.

Nice

So it was correct to bet turn in the end then? Seems like you got the max.

So many turn check raises just don't add up because if you did have anything worth doing it with you lose the customer a lot. Especially on paired boards.

JP's river fold with K5s is him trying to 'exploit you' by using his read (whether it be a physical tell, a gut feeling, or just his perception of your range in this spot) to make a fold in a spot where he 'should' call in a vacuum.

If it turns out he was right to make the fold then he has outplayed you, although it is always possible that he has just made a lucky guess with the fold and randomly been correct this time. If it turns out that he was wrong to make the fold then you have outplayed him, although it is always possible that you have just made a lucky guess with your bluff and randomly got away with it this time.

^^ when you and Dave were discussing who was exploiting who it was great as I knew the result and understood all u guys posted.

I really felt I missed some value with my hand by chk raising the turn as this particular part of the play alerted JP to the fact I had a hand but I felt it the only play that theoretically enabled us to play for stacks ott or river.

I missed a bet by betting the river as JP 100% bets the river as played if I chk and probs calls off being pot stuck?

For Doobs ;) I had 88 in this hand for turned house but felt like I missed 1street.

Thx for all input guys
<3 Blonde!!

His kicker was a 2?  ;)

Just for interest, what other turn cards are you going to call the turn bet, and are there any other cards you check raise (eg 6 or 7)?

and just for interest did he act like this when he found out you had 88?

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HJ7atyuvPw

I'm really confused lol. It's a way different situation when it's the other way round!! the HH defo felt weird

It looks like a spot where i'v realised we're beat and trying to look really sick I'm unlikely to have folded in game (if it was as you said it was) but completely ruling out folding was defo a mistake everyone was making - speshly saying readless folding would be terrible, defo more likely to be good readless.

As it plays I think JPs thought process will have gone "he's very rarely bluffing and very rarely VB'ing worse" as simple as it is, and it's prolly true here.

Nah, I still think calling on the river is the best vacuum play with no reads. And I definitely think there is no justification at all for folding on the turn vs the min c/r as you (half) suggested.

Obviously any line can be justified based on a read though; whether it be a ninja spidey sense thing or just an opinion on how the majority of players are going to act in a particular spot. If the thought process you suggested JP would have had is accurate ("he's very rarely bluffing and very rarely value betting worse") then that is a read-based adjustment.

Also... Rich, with all the switcherooing has it actually been made clear what JP's full hand was? i.e. did he fold K5 face-up, or did he just fold a 5 face up and you have fabricated the K for the sake of the switcheroo?

It does sort of make a difference whether hero has K5 or 52...

^^ will come back to all points after the weekend

That is what I was hinting at.  It is easier to fold 52 than k5, because his value range could include the likes of 57 and 56.  It feels like that could be enough to tip the scale for me.

You can apply all the theory you like to a spot, but play this one out in a tournament 200 times and I bet you just run into it a high %. People just don't bluff here all that much - that's just what my gut tells me

God how bad does Vanessa come across there?

Yeah, she looks like a bloke.
:)

(http://www.televisionheaven.co.uk/emery6.jpg)

I doubt she is trying to attract you.

I'm under no illusion that she is.

You should see bob's videos.

Love the twist in this thread.

Even if it makes no sense.